She sat down to watch the clothes tumble in the machine, wishing she’d brought a magazine. Good Housekeeping was out now, maybe she could pop out and buy a copy. She swung her purse over her arm, and set off to the corner store. Instead found her feet taking her – without so much as a nod to her brain – to Vic’s Ice-Cream Parlour.
Jacko was ninety miles away, in a downtown San Francisco restaurant. He was sitting with two men in white T-shirts and Levis. Their corduroy jackets were slung over the backs of their chairs. They were drinking German beer and making Martin Luther King jokes. I had a wet dream. They knew it was in bad taste; that’s why it was so funny. The beer was stronger than the beer Jacko was used to. He listened to them snorting with laughter at something he didn’t understand, but you wouldn’t guess it to hear him respond with a burst of laughter. Not a fake laugh, either. Jacko was laughing because he was so happy, he might burst into song if he didn’t laugh. Look at him – Jacko MacAlister, the winery worker’s son, the skinny kid who hadn’t kissed a girl till he was sixteen, eating pastrami on rye and drinking fancy beer with two Golden Gate Freight Press editors! And they hadn’t even asked him questions about his employment history, which was a huge relief. He’d sent them a partially fictionalised CV, just on a whim, never expecting to be invited for an interview. Crazy impulse, but here he was. He made a mental note to ask Billie to buy him some good quality white T-shirts. His own button-down shirt suddenly felt boring. His shoes seemed too polished, and his hair a smidgen too short. And also, maybe buy a case of this stuff, what was it again? Boy oh boy, it tasted fine! He was living the American Dream now, goddammit.
The waitress cleared their plates, brought coffees, and they all lit up cigarettes with Jacko’s Zippo. A moment passed, while they inhaled and puffed.
‘So, Jack!’ said one of the men. Jacko considered reminding him again that his name was Jacko, not Jack. Then did not. No one liked to be corrected, right?
‘Jack, I may as well tell you now.’ He looked at his colleague, who smiled his approval. ‘We want you.’
‘Boy oh boy!’ was all Jacko could think to say, but inside he was saying Fuck!! They couldn’t have checked any of his references.
‘You’ll be assistant editor for half a year or so, then maybe commissioning editor. You’re going to fit right in, Jack.’
Both men shook his hand vigorously, and Jacko suddenly saw himself as they must see him. A reliable, unpretentious Jack. Not the wild card, Jacko. Was the name Jacko a bit silly?
‘Very now place, the city. Your family will love it.’ Jacko/Jack knew exactly how now and how wow the Bay Area was. Back to base camp. San Francisco, the sweetest town in the world.
All the rest of the day, while he sobered up driving home, he kept calling himself Jack. With the new beer, the new job, the prospect of a new house, the new name easily jostled into the big picture. New life, new name. Jack MacAlister, one of the Golden Gate Freight guys. He imagined cocktail parties in apartments with views of Coit Tower, Alcatraz, the bridge.
‘You’re not the Jack MacAlister, are you? Golden Gate Freight’s Jack?’
‘Well, yes, actually,’ he’d reply, acting mildly surprised. They’d smile and mention that they were writers, albeit unpublished. They’d tell him what a genius he was, to have discovered so and so, who was their favourite all-time writer. And could he maybe take a look at their poems one day? Or their novel?
Golden Gate Freight wouldn’t have strict work hours. There’d be long mornings in Café Trieste with his notebook and black coffee, making notes, surrounded by poets, artists, musicians, not to mention all those inhabitants of North Beach that made it North Beach. The strippers, the out-of-work longshoremen, the fat old Italian women in black sweeping their door steps. In his mind, San Francisco took on the shape of a vaguely familiar once-loved woman he was now determined to get to know again. To woo. No, not just one familiar once-loved woman: a dozen women. San Francisco was a room full of beautiful women, all desperate to seduce him.
By the time he was driving onto Cherry Blossom Way, the name Jacko seemed juvenile, show-offy. Jack was serious. People took a Jack seriously. Jack Kennedy. Jack Kerouac. Jack London. Jack, Jack, Jack. Jack MacAlister, editor at the best publishing house on the west coast. Life could not be better.
So when he told Billie later, over a late dinner of French toast, bacon and maple syrup, he was not prepared for her tears. She wasn’t either. Why was she crying like this? Her tears were hot and fierce.
‘Why didn’t you tell me, Jacko?’
‘I was sure I wouldn’t get the job.’
‘Isn’t Golden Gate Freight that same place you applied to before?’
‘Yeah! You remembered. I’ve been applying for jobs there since I left college. Couldn’t believe it when they finally shortlisted me. I had to go, Billie.’
Pause, while she found some tissues. Blew her nose.
‘You could have mentioned you were driving to the city.’
‘I should have. Sorry, sweetie.’
‘I don’t know why you have to be so darn secretive.’
‘I don’t either. But just think – we’re moving to San Francisco!’
She missed this house already. The lemon and orange trees, the squirrels and the attic bedroom with tiny-paned windows and cut-glass doorknobs. The coolness of the living room, with its white walls and curved door arch. And missing 1910 Cherry Blossom Lane was immediately clumped with everything that she had ever missed, starting with that falling-in-love feeling that faded one afternoon in 1955. The view from every kitchen window since they’d married, which amounted to eight kitchen windows. She missed the way she used to fit into her grey honeymoon dress, with the narrow grey belt. And Charlie – there he was, adding his infant poignancy, and the smell of sick in his hair. Darn it! She opened her mouth to speak, but cried louder instead.
‘Aw, what’s the matter, honey?’
She blew her nose again. ‘Sorry. I’m just so tired, Jacko.’
‘I know. This heat. San Francisco will be so much cooler.’
She wasn’t being honest with him, but still – his ignorance of her was infuriating. She glared at him, sitting across from her, and he seemed not just miles away, but an entirely different species. It was not classy, not a Jackie thing to do, but she pushed her plate away, then stood up and scraped her dinner into the garbage.
‘What? For Christ’s sake, Billie, what the hell?’ At least the children were already in bed.
‘You announce we have to move. Pack everything up again, pull the kids out of school, find a new place to live, new friends, new everything and you wonder why, why, why I am not dancing for joy? Darn it, are you…nuts?’
Billie could not swear out loud. It was like a speech impediment. Her mind was screaming, Goddammit you fucking selfish asshole, but out came the ineffective nuts and darn it again.
‘Billie. Honey. You’ve always coped so well before.’
‘No. No! I have never coped well. It’s been hard each time. I love this house! It’s the best house yet!’
‘You never said you minded moving. Am I a mind reader?’
Another nose-blowing pause. He kept his eyes on her. Fork poised above cooling French toast.
‘What’s the date?’
‘It is not my period,’ she lied.
‘It’s the middle of the month.’
‘Stop changing the subject. I hate moving.’
